While much of university winds down during the late spring and summer, we’ve had a fascinating dance card at Ivey Entrepreneurship.
This spring, we held the 15th edition of the QuantumShiftTM program, which has hosted over 600 of Canada’s top high growth entrepreneurs. It is a tremendous achievement to see how far the program has come and it’s always one of my personal highlights of the year. Its success has fueled a number of other great executive programs such as FamilyShiftTM, and the Business Development Bank of Canada’s Growth Driver Program, both of which will be hosting their 2nd editions this year.
I’ve also been deeply engaged with our Disruption Initiative, where we’ve met with business leaders and entrepreneurs from around the world to understand how they are adapting to our fast-changing world. While we plan to reveal our insights later this fall, we have been sharing our initial findings at ivey.ca/disruption
Lastly, over the past two years, we’ve been working closely with partners at Western University to bring entrepreneurship across campus. That work has yielded some interesting programs like Graduate Student Innovation Scholars, the Western Accelerator program, as well as a faculty ambassador program for entrepreneurship across departments. We are also teaching design thinking and new venture creation across campus.
In recognition of our progress, I have been appointed as a Special Advisor to the President and Director of Entrepreneurship at Western University. I will continue to run the Morrissette Institute but am looking forward to greater collaboration, both within Western and outside the university; what are the partnerships and alliances we can create to help move entrepreneurship forward at Ivey, Western and Canada in general.
It’s fair to say that we are looking forward to another exciting year.